Build cross-platform mixed reality applications with spatial context

Create mixed reality apps that map, designate and recall precise points of interest that are accessible across HoloLens, iOS and Android devices. Enable wayfinding across spaces to help your users collaborate more efficiently.

Add context to the real world

Provide your users a better understanding of their data, where they need it and when they need it, by placing and connecting your digital content to physical points of interest.

Share holograms across devices

Accelerate decisions and results by bringing 3D to your team and customers on the device of their choice.

Infuse AI and protect your apps

Do more with your solution by integrating IoT services and artificial intelligence, and protect sensitive data with enterprise-grade security from Azure.

See how it works

Build multi-user, cross-platform apps. Create persistent spatial anchors in the real world and attach digital content to those anchors. Enable wayfinding. With Azure Spatial Anchors, you have all of these capabilities at your fingertips. Watch them come together in a common scenario – architecture design review.

Build apps that use your world as a canvas

Map your space and connect points of interest to create wayfinding experiences, and place shareable, location-based holograms with no environmental setup or QR codes required.

Create collaborative experiences across platforms

Share mixed reality content in a real-world location and return to it on an ongoing basis for scenarios such as training and design review – all on the devices that work best for your solution. Azure Spatial Anchors supports HoloLens devices, ARKit-enabled iOS devices and ARCore-enabled Android devices. Build your apps using Unity or your favourite native SDK for the devices you choose to support.

Build mixed reality and IoT solutions that streamline operations

Accessing facilities data can be difficult in complex and active environments such as industrial facilities and large spaces (hotels, conference halls etc.). This scenario, built on Azure Spatial Anchors and Azure Digital Twins, shows how you can visualise a virtual replica of your physical space with real-time data in the context of your environment. It provides a guide for improving uptime and operations in hospitality, manufacturing, retail and more.

Trusted by companies of all sizes

“Azure Spatial Anchors is the next step in the digital transformation of the AEC industry, where physical and digital assets co-exist. This technology enables a device-agnostic approach to mixed reality and supports integrated design, where all project stakeholders can access the right data at the right time across project phases.
The spatial awareness and level of accuracy can help our AEC customers access task-driven, trade-specific 3D data in context, supporting a more transparent construction process, with improved productivity, quality, and safety.”

Aviad Almagor, Director, Mixed Reality Program, Trimble Inc.

“Azure Spatial Anchors allows RemoteSpark to place digital assets, like animated holograms or PDF files, in a physical space so when the remote worker puts on a HoloLens, they can see what data is associated with their location or physical object. It truly unlocks the potential of mixing your digital knowledge with the physical world to help perform tasks quicker and with greater accuracy.”

Ryan Groom, Co-Founder & CTO, Kognitiv Spark

“We can reach more students, educators and families by uniting our experiences across mobile and HoloLens devices. With Azure Spatial Anchors' cross-platform support, we can bring our curriculum to life in 3D and share it with everyone.”

Frequently asked questions about Azure Spatial Anchors

Mixed reality is the result of blending the physical world with the digital world. It adds interactive holograms to your real environment. Holograms are objects made of light and sound that appear in the world around you and obscure what’s behind them as if they’re real. Using artificial intelligence, holograms in mixed reality respond to commands and interact with real-world surfaces in real time.

Across augmented reality (AR) platforms, “anchors” are a common frame of reference for enabling multiple users to place digital content in the same physical location, where it can be seen on different devices in the same position and orientation relative to the environment. With Azure Spatial Anchors, you can add anchor persistence and permissions, and then connect anchors in your application so that your users can find nearby content.

Azure Spatial Anchors supports all HoloLens devices. Today, we offer documentation support for HoloLens Development Edition and HoloLens Commercial Suite, and documentation for HoloLens 2 is coming soon. You can also use this service in apps running on iOS-based devices supporting ARKit, and Android-based devices supporting ARCore.